


try a little tenderness

by yananies



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band)
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, M/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension, food as a metaphor for love kinda, idolverse, yanan thinks changgu is the most beautiful person he's ever seen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yananies/pseuds/yananies
Summary: "What's that all about, anyway? You keep doing things that are out of character these days.""I’ve always had an eye for unusual things."Changgu's chin is perched on Yanan's shoulder now, and he can hear him smirk as he lets his fingers move through the dark whorls of his hair, gentle and slow. "Yeah. Like collecting the most mundane candy wrappers for posterity's sake.""Like me being friends with you."
Relationships: Yan An/Yeo Changgu | Yeo One
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20
Collections: Constellations Fest for Pentagon





	try a little tenderness

**Author's Note:**

> prompt c#121 : yanan likes to collect candy wrappers. changgu likes to eat candy. a match made in heaven
> 
> everyone look away as i leave the prompter a personal message : i hope i could do justice to your prompt <3 thank you for planting this little seed inside my brain and allowing me to do some disgustingly cute candy metaphors i'm indebted to you for a while i think
> 
> this was fun :) i'm grateful i was given this spot and space to write!! i was listening to outskirts of paradise by bad suns while reviewing this and even though it's only distantly related to my plot and has oblique references to it you should listen to it too

_"That's still a bit stiff. Think of it as gliding across the floor, without friction, see? As if you're floating."_

Yanan huffs. It's easier said by some than done by most.

Plenty of literature, paintings, lithographs and movies have sought to depict the visage of angels for the benefit of human perception, but Yanan's convinced he personally knows of the definite inspiration behind most of the unfairly gorgeous beings ever committed to stone – where "angel" is a general artistic and aesthetic portmanteau for doe eyes, bright smiles, and a basic hard-wired ability to look dazzling even when accomplishing the most mundane of tasks. Where "angel" had much more less of an issue committing to the illusion of what a dance teacher would call a move lighter than water.

_"Look at how Changgu does it."_

He turns his head to the left just enough so that Changgu slides into his peripheral vision, catches sight of his friend's brown eyes and the feeling of being under a magnifying glass rushes over him, and it highlights the exact reason Changgu ranks high in his list of preoccupations in the first place. Not because the harsh lights of the practice room do nothing to tarnish his looks – it's almost unfair, the thought makes Yanan selfishly want to steal him back from the whirlwind of starlight he has found himself nonchalantly spun in and coddle him in his own sterling – Changgu's distraction lies in places meant to be discovered and not announced, Changgu's distraction lies in the fact that as much as Yanan may have committed himself to studying the boy since the first day they met, Changgu does the same right back, with twice the intensity. As he probably does with everyone and everything else, out of sheer selflessness, Changgu looks over Yanan carefully whenever they’re in public or discussing future plans or even eating together first thing in the morning. It's freeing rather than smothering.

Yanan knows they're all about to get busier as soon as everyone is ready and consolidates every single motor task into memory, but lately, nothing feels busier than the inside of his mind. In there, Changgu's the breath collapsing beside him after too many runs of a dance. He's the one sneaking chocolate bars nibbled down gradually over the course of several weeks and party size bags of candy into the dorm to scarf down at three in the morning when they should be getting their prescribed rest instead. "Don’t worry," Changgu will tell him, chin propped in his palm while he transports treats to his mouth with evident relish. "I know we’re dieting, but you still have to listen to what your body wants," he'll say, in a way that makes Yanan stand his ground against the instinct to bite back a much more rational quip. He's the one handing over his ice packet when Yanan’s long limbs move in a way they shouldn't, when he tiptoes on the edge of something that could be more, and more often than not Yanan catches himself half tempted to allow his ankles to tangle and tumble forward, simply to see what would happen. To see what Changgu would do.

It’s a bleary-eyed sort of late and practice is intense, demanding and particularly exhausting that day and part of Yanan wants nothing more than to shower and wash all the sweat and grime from his body then go home after their last run-through.

The placid smile Changgu wears most of the time becomes a far warmer one on encountering Yanan, and the latter watches as Changgu takes a few strides towards him, notices the way he had gone pinker around the cheeks from physical exertion. He was good at that too, giving things his all.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"Good job. The rest of the boys are going to get food," he doesn't flinch when Yanan reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear, "are you tagging along?"

"I want to get the most out of this and firm it all up." Yanan raises his arms overhead in a lazy stretch. "You best be going."

"Heading to the gym? But it's so late. We could just have a bite then watch a movie back home."

It does sound good, a lot better, actually.

"It's alright! You don't have to wait for me."

He doesn’t usually have to say it. Changgu always waits for him. A stranger would miss it yet it all feels so strangely engrossing. Changgu makes noises he has never heard and holds his heart hot and writhing, kneads it, shapes it for all time in a way that says he's been here, he has recalled courage through thumb shelled thimbles and the shadow casting shutters warding out the intruding sun in their shared room. As a public figure, most of the time, Yanan feels like he’s scarily laid bare for the entire world to examine, his history and his life on display, perched on the outer ring of something he can’t ever be truly privy to. And Changgu, just from working and living alongside him for the past years, has gotten a front row view to it, and he pronounces him worthy.

He wonders what determinations his friend is making about him other than how different they are, how Changgu's into everything Yanan isn't and how convenient it is at times. How each other's tastes and perceptions fit together with a click, how he sealed Yanan like some calfskin envelope housing him, how the two of them are bound together by much more than circumstances, and he also wonders if Changgu feels an entire swarm of butterflies flutter inside his chest at the idea too.

"...Can I come ?"

_Can I come_ . Not _please be home soon_ , or _pick up some make-up wipes_ , _you're out again and I’m alone now_. Changgu doesn't use conditionals. Changgu isn't guarded or conditional. He's ever-present and demanding, swiftly worked his way through and out of the wide net of quiet, brutal patience and head first into Yanan's life. He would probably be better off sinking into a bath for a few hours, it might mitigate whatever protest his leg muscles were planning for tomorrow morning – he'd heard Changgu whine a little to Hui about how particularly sore they felt that day – and Yanan lingers on that moment his brain switches wheels, from all his thoughts focused on the fanning chilling his sweat-slick scalp then the fact his friend just wanted to spend time alone with him.

They usually do exercise together though, with or without people around. One day, Changgu had idly, without conviction, floated the idea that he ought perhaps to work harder to counter all the candies and pastries he liked indulging in. Obviously, reducing his consumption was not an option he wanted to consider, and Yanan, without sparing him a glance, had declared said idea a ridiculous one. Changgu had expressed the want to prove him wrong then, but apparently not quite strong enough to actually do anything about it – rightfully so, he was just about stunning.  
  


*

  
  


It has always been quietly chaotic – on Yanan's part, at least. 

Yanan back then was all gangly limbs and uncertain hands and none of a swan's deliberate grace. Changgu back then was all wide eyes and a smile like the sun and hair parted at the center, looking like it'd be really, really soft to touch, maybe, probably, if he'd only let Yanan run a hand through the dark of it just once, only once (he did eventually).

From the day Changgu and Yanan had shared the stressful and meticulous experience involving three staff members documenting their young bare faces at every imaginable angle, Yanan had always assumed – perhaps disingenuously – that Changgu was like most people he grew up around; very much capable of great expressions of love when it came to humanity, his family and members, but generally not as vocal on the topic personally. 

He had it in him, a love for the first singing bird in the morning, a love for the nice lady he buys his favorite candy from, an unconditional love for Yanan for sure, but the love of a kind, well-meaning teammate inclined to spontaneity rather than carefully designed birthday bashes and who nods their head hello in the morning with just enough movement to show a degree of respect without additional formality. Love but distant, detached, and impersonal, the kind that's tempered with a lot of sound, the slipping-by of stepping in or stepping out, the after-yous of both polite society and his upbringing, knocked elbows and the return of near-lost property. When Changgu brought it up, he talked about love with the sort of fondness that only excessively schmaltzy displays of unrelatable sentiment could inspire in people that had to live in a raw world, with things like a split up family and friends who come up with plans that no party can uphold. Yanan thought and still thinks that it's okay for Changgu to do that, to treat himself the way he treats others. If ever the man had any flaws, it laid in his eagerness to be overly trusting and understanding, skills he seemed to demonstrate with infuriating regularity, and it made up for the memories and acres Yanan never had.

Looking back at it, Yanan figures he should have been some sort of unsettled that he had allowed him to enter his life so fully, but he couldn't summon anything that was stronger than the frustration he felt reminding Changgu to scoop up his jacket from where he'd thrown it on the dining table and hanging it in the coat closet, or making two cups of coffee instead of one without thought, and without needing to ask how his roommate took it. Nothing stronger than the contentment that washes over him when on some nights, Changgu decides to lay by his side, unwavering heat flushing along his entirety, soft chuckle — the only subtle thing about his friend, sometimes — rumbling low in his chest and bubbling all across Yanan's collar. Nothing stronger than the beauty of little things and their tiny echoes when Changgu catches on the spot just below Yanan's jaw, the one that never fails to make his breath catch and his toes curl when anyone so much as breathes across it.

The most beautiful stories Yanan can think of do not tell of a sink or swim moment where someone knows they're on the brink of completely tumbling into love but Yanan remembers vividly the second he let some walls crumble, a few years ago, one packed day not unlike any other at a restaurant table. Ever the picky eater, Shinwon was pondering on what to order and Changgu thought he would impress everyone by rattling every item off the menu in order and by heart. The location and the sugar rush of the egg-based souffle they'd gone for on Changgu's suggestion had made his roommate talk about whatever he was up to even more fervently than usual – he would listen to Changgu praise and describe, detailing the precise elements of the things that made it, in very non culinary terms. The next day, Yanan had gone back to the brasserie, bought the rest of the stupid sponge and took it home, where the two boys spent the rest of the night up and playing games.

Changgu was always much more skilled than Yanan at card games and at most things that require logical thinking and reminding the rules, and after a while, Yanan noticed that he had stopped marking when a certain hand didn't go his way, but never forgot to jot it down when Yanan won. Giving him a derisive sort of snort and an incredulous look, he'd asked him how many times he had scored and didn't keep track. Changgu had broken open on a smile and a laugh then, breathless and beaming, "I don't know ! That's the point of not keeping track."

They'd eaten the cake until both their lips and fingers got greasy with it, and that was it, love bubbling like a brook in Yanan's heart, this big beautiful thing that had long started to reveal itself in the small specifics. He, for a reason so vague logic itself would spit in his face knew that Changgu fell for him too then, that exact same night, but he never asked how and when. He suspects a moment somewhere in between him playfully putting cream on Changgu's cheek and the latter claiming he'd wear it for the rest of the evening like a trophy of war — then, Yanan felt the affirmation on the tip of his own tongue and saw it hover on the farthest reaches of Changgu's mouth as well. Changgu makes deposits in words, Yanan, in actions and collections, and together, they could craft a picture book of overwhelming love in a secret dimension, if only they dared exposing it all.

He thinks there must be something there, a comprehension of love beyond Changgu's optimistic-standard, overarching love for mankind. That Changgu could, and apparently did, pick some smiles over others.

(Yanan still has the cake's cardboard box sitting on a shelf in their room, the memory sweet when reminiscing it over the sounds of Jinho's justified pleads to just throw it away.)

  
  


*

Yanan doesn’t have to slaughter himself with an intense workout to clear his mind. He runs at a steady pace at a slight incline on the treadmill against one wall of the tiny fitness center: there's a television mounted on the wall in front of him but the position places most of the rest of the room in Yanan's line of sight. He keeps himself panting and flushed enough to not engage with the other man in the room, ignoring the cramps climbing their way up his legs and losing himself in the repetitiveness, the hypnotic thrum of the machine. He lets himself get out of his own head. In a lifestyle where appearance is as important as ability — if not moreso — exercise and keeping himself in agreeable shape is a part of the job description, however unfair. Ever efficient though, Yanan turned that necessity into an habitual retreat from the world, while Changgu calls it a 'time to breathe' even though, objectively, he's struggling to. Working out is one of his patented three pillars of beauty, along with eating every meal and appreciating every moment.

In his peripherals, Changgu is looking down and fiddling with a wristwatch heart rate monitor for a moment and Yanan hazards an actual glance at him, the sight quickly gaining a foothold on the one of the screen, nagging at him, demanding more of his energy. Changgu's dressed to work out as well from practice, but he looks all tender and unhurried, eyes kind, honey glaze falling from his irises, and bare, as they often were these days when it was just the two of them. His lips curl and set themselves curved into an unmistakable fond smirk and his hair is all fluffed out of sorts. He looks smaller, somehow, with his outer layers stripped away, simpler. Content. Like the silence gives way for his curtsying blinks. If he looks totally immune to Yanan's physical presence in his space, Yanan isn't to his.

Changgu had skipped both the treadmill and the stationary bike and opted instead to line up several sets of dumbbells beside a mat in the center of the room earlier, busying himself with them for ten minutes that he had deemed long enough to ease his conscience, and then he was done. It's surprising enough as Changgu never seems to run in the same vein as Yanan, the effortless control he wields over everything every day naturally translates to his personal habits, the ways he carries himself, the way he speaks his mind with more than his pretty mouth. He talks at times about being envious of some of his teammates' genetics, including Yanan, but any innate athletic ability objectively pales in the face of Changgu's single-minded persistence to always improve, always strive for something bigger and better than what he is. He's not racing anyone else, Yanan has come to realize, but himself — and it motivates him more than it makes him doubt. Changgu feels like a sword blade to his throat, like hellfire in his gut, and staring too long also had the peril of starting a fire. It was a steeply hazardous zone. A single look, lingering too long in the wrong place could bring out sparks the kind one sees on a stormy day coming out of fallen electric poles. And they were both rather awful at stealth.

"Are you just going to stand by and do nothing?" 

"They're offering deals on nutritional supplements and discounted massages at the local spa", Changgu immediately dodges his question and points at the tacky ad on the big television, "this place surely will benefit from these programs by increasing your loyalty to them. See how we balance each other out. You do the running, I do the profiting."

"You're drooling over the food additives? You obviously don't need these."

Yanan couldn't immediately tell if Changgu really did pinken at the mention of it or if it was a trick of the light, but if he did he shook it off quickly as he rolled his eyes. "The massages, Yanan, I think I need some well-deserved relaxation. Besides, you're right, I don't need any supplementary feeding." He fumbles in his backpack for a pouch, and Yanan's greeted by the sweet smell that can only come from having so much artificial flavor and sugar in so few square feet. "Why don’t you rehydrate and take a breather there ?"

The treadmill beeps and reduces speed without warning as if on Changgu's command, almost sending Yanan stumbling at the sudden shift. He stretches his shaking legs for a moment, then wipes the sweat from his chest and face and hops off the treadmill to come round and join Changgu where he's sitting on the floor despite the gym not being devoid of comfort — there's a couch next to the weight machines, sturdy but soft, and more than big enough for two, but he figures Changgu is not as worried about waking up feeling numb the next day as he originally thought he was. He must have looked a bloody sight because Changgu reaches into his backpack for the second time and offers a bottle of water that Yanan puts an inordinate amount of focus on drinking, slowing his breathing between sips. His mouth has run dry anyway, but he can't get a thought in edgewise and he keeps the action languid like he's buying time for his thoughts to coalesce. 

"It'll give me killer calves", Yanan tilts his chin towards the running device, he and his friend taking turns emptying the bottle until it is down to the last third. 

"Or a heart attack." Changgu replies easy, a touch smug.

"It won't, but all that candy might."

"I know we both had it hard today and I figured you might want a pick me up. As much as I'd love to discuss your legs right now, we have a _lot_ of pieces to add to your archives."

A little bit of embarrassment flares in Yanan's chest, and he decides not to latch onto the emotion. Yanan's candy wrappers collection is made of some of the neatest pieces he's picked up during the previous twelve months, ever since the cake situation. Typically, his collection comprises vintage confectionery packaging pieces he'd been hunting for, for months, most of the time items he never knew existed or something he picked up new at retail. A few non-candy wrapping pieces do manage to make their way onto the list as well, along with the disgustingly sweet sparkling macarons packaging that Changgu loves – they come three to a box with suitably soda-sourced flavors and there's something endearing yet oddly concerning about him getting one of these every week. 

Changgu carefully peels back the wrapper, revealing the luscious delight inside. Earnestly, he lifts the treat, popping it between his lips. "Here, look ! These come with cute little stickers."

He's smiling so wide, because being adorable is a core tenet of his identity.

"Come here." Yanan apparently doesn't register the request fast enough for Changgu, so he shuffles closer. "Since we're not going to address the one in the room." Changgu chuckles, peeling one of the sticky animals off the plastic inside the wrapper and putting it on the apple of Yanan's cheek. The elephant caves in when Yanan mirrors his smile and he reaches up to smooth it down again.

For a moment, it's all Yanan can do to stare at him. The words don't seem to make sense: singly, yes, but as a collective he could be parsing it all wrong. 

Changgu remains silent for a few minutes too, his gaze fond as he takes in the adorable sight of Yanan with gradually more and more stickers peppered around his face, eating until the sugar nips at his lips. Yanan stands as still as he is able and lets him have this, trying to hold his heart together in the meantime and a soft feeling rattles under his ribs like a bird when Changgu calls him cute.

"This is fun."

Yanan almost feels like he's meeting a part of his friend that he hasn't seen in a long time. Changgu is such a vision when he jumps around and dances that sometimes, Yanan forgets to watch him when he's still. If there was a way to carve something solid out of silence, it would be shaped like this, he thinks, and suspects that Changgu is like this all the time, deep down, and that he just prefers not to show it. It's the self-preservation of someone in a world that constantly demands he be something just a bit different than what he really is, and every time Yanan gets a glimpse beyond the curtain, he falls a little more, he wraps his head around his friend's tolerance of his avowed fascinations, falls a little deeper. What he feels for him is so below the surface it often evaporates into him, merging with blood and beats to symbolize a delicate humanized breathing space. Yanan wonders if there's such thing as having too much of it, too much of Changgu, and if so, he wants it a little too bad.

Changgu is reaching into the pouch for what has to be the tenth time, and pulls out two little rabbit shaped candies, one yellow and the other red. 

He smiles softly at the two candies sitting in the middle of his palm, leaning against each other as if posing like actual bunnies. Yanan acknowledges the sweet ache that didn't squeeze too tight, didn't twist him up too badly. Just enough for him to feel it. The frequency with which this happens when he looks at Changgu doesn't alarm him anymore – there is no way to describe the way his chest contracts at the sight. Maybe he's only love-starved, which is somehow even more embarrassing than the affection he has for his best friend.

"They're cuddling," Changgu murmurs to himself, and it's the most velvet-clad affirmation Yanan has ever heard. "Do you want one? Half and half."

"A crime for my waistline", Yanans snickers. "And you shouldn't separate them, you monster. They're lovers." 

Changgu heaves a cute sigh and takes one of the gelatinous animal by its tail, places it into his mouth, doing the same to the yellow one, and he chews them both together. 

"God, Yanan", Changgu hums dramatically in the back of his throat, "You have to try this."

"They're like… the most generic brand of candy I can think of. I know what they're like," Yanan says, and manages to make it sound like everything but a scolding, mildness and all.

"You don't know what they're like coming from my hand."

He agitates it in the air, then lets it rest atop Yanan’s larger one. It's not unfamiliar to see those spaces filled, their fingers anchored together, bone for bone for bone. With one fingertip, he strokes along the texture of his hand, tracing along the ridges of knuckles and length of fingers, a calming gesture he uses on Yanan when he is tired or upset, unable to force any sound out amidst an indecipherable stammer. His skin is warm and dry, smooth as always and Yanan has a disquieting impulse to bring it close to his mouth and press his lips there, which he pushes immediately to one side, although not before thinking that the other boy might not stop him if he did. He hears him take a shallow breath and hold it, hand tensing below him and Yanan tries to remember the first time Changgu's ever touched him with purpose, the same time he managed to shake a lifetime’s habit of being mostly at a significant distance from anyone else. 

"Changgu… The numbers on your watch monitor keep going up." His eyes flicker down from Changgu’s face back to his wrist before he even tries to catch something there, slowly gulps down the knot sitting at the base of his throat. "I thought it was weird since you haven't worked up a sweat. Maybe… you're wearing it too tight and it throws off the measurements."

"I'm not," Changgu is whispering despite the fact that it only is the two of them in the room. "Wearing it too tight."

Yanan drifts the tip of his fingers over those veins, catching Changgu's shivering pulse: these trembling reminders of the thunderous heart buried deep inside, these blue confirmations that Changgu is, aside from everything else that everyone else might demand that he be, a real life angel.

They had both gone from their stiff cross-legged postures to lounging further and further back on the wall. Yanan's arm flexes, tightens around his shoulder, and he lets himself relax and his posture slip a little as Changgu straightens up, meeting him in the middle. Changgu finds himself tucked up under his friend's arm, the two of them pressed together at shoulder and chest and hip and thigh and calf and even ankle, as Changgu's foot hooks around his leg, just enough to stop them from drifting apart.

They lapse into silence again, a quiet kind of contentment falling over the room. Occasionally the blue wail of a police siren broke through the silence of the night, but other than that the world seemed to hover on the verge of a sigh, tender and soft in a way it had never been before. Changgu is glancing up sort of mistily at him in a way that would have been incredibly unsettling under other circumstances and he can tell he is bathing in blissful unawareness of the way every breath he takes is writing and becoming one with Yanan's own story, this connection surging and shoving like polished marble faced magnets, inviting one's exposure to the other's widened embrace. 

"You know, Yanan talks, something akin to boldness adding to the smoothie of glee and adrenaline in his chest cavity, "You stare at me like crazy."

" _You_ keep staring at _me_ , and you're the one with cute stickers all over your face. What's your excuse?"

Yanan peels a little cat off his temple, reaches out to let it stick pathetically on the top of Changgu's nose in an attempt to be even. Changgu scoots even closer in the process. "This kitty. Nighttime sweat sessions. Having practiced without a break for eight hours today." _The face of angel,_ he swallows, a face furthest from being entirely unappealing to watch, something which Yanan had conceded to long ago.

"What's that all about, anyway? You keep doing things that are out of character these days."

"I’ve _always_ had an eye for unusual things."

Changgu's chin is perched on Yanan's shoulder now, and he can hear him smirk as he lets his fingers move through the dark whorls of his hair, gentle and slow. "Yeah. Like collecting the most mundane candy wrappers for posterity's sake."

"Like me being friends with you."

It was, perhaps, too soft a sentiment to be uttered that way, but it had been a soft evening, to the point Yanan considers telling Changgu at some point that he calls him an angel in his head. He can tell Changgu is a bit flustered and trying to find an edge, some way to re-establish distance, but the best he can muster is poking the mice-looking sticky animal on the corner of Yanan's mouth, the one he insisted had way too long of a muzzle to be a bear as his friend originally claimed he was.

The position they're in is starting to burn aggressively at Yanan's lower back, to where he wants to pull away and lay on the couch and winces when Changgu makes himself cozier, cheeks warming up just at the thought of them being this close. 

"I think about it a lot. I can't believe it either, most of the time. I'm so comfortable."

"You're going to fall asleep like this? Sitting on the cold hard floor?"

Changgu digs his nose into his shoulder, where the hem of his shirt tickles the tip of his skin, sighs there, chews what's left of the treat in his mouth. He smells of what fruit would smell like if they were polished and came in perfect molds.

"I'm comfortable with you is what I mean. But now that you mention it, this area here…" He pulls back and stays quiet for a moment, taking stock of what to say, feeling Yanan's shoulder blades with his palm and placing it back on his hip once he's done. "It feels just like my neck pillow."

Yanan pokes at Changgu's side in retaliation. Changgu catches his finger and uses it to tug him towards his own body. "It's not as pleasant to me, Changgu. My back hurts."

"It's okay," Changgu's voice comes teasing, "I'm feeling generous, so I'll let you have the full body massage coupon you so nicely offered to me to alleviate your pain."

"Do you really think about it a lot? How much do you think about it?"

In his surprise, Changgu's lips part a little in the shape of a question, and if there are things Yanan always takes with him into the dark — Changgu's wandering hands, his breath pooling in the gulf of his collarbone, the caution with which they touch each other now and ever, head pats and eyes half-closed in the splintering light from the window — he does not name them. It's enough that each point of contact has its own real meeting-place, that these moments are not so imaginary anymore.

"How much do I think about us?" Changgu repeats, and there's something a little scary and eerie about hearing him say his words back to him, the way he repeats not only the actual thought but the cadence, faithfully.

Giving in to the tangle of impulse warming the floor of his stomach, Changgu leans in to press a closed mouth against the curve of Yanan's jaw, and Yanan short-circuits. It's dry and short but it's there, and it's skin on skin, like a flash in the dark suddenly rendering the rest of him numb to anything else. He tightens his hold on Yanan's waist, pulls him a little closer. 

"Why do you think that is?" He faces Yanan again and laughs and it's beautiful, he's beautiful, pointing at the numbers on his wristwatch going up, and up, and it makes up for everything that he can't or doesn't want to say. Yanan soon understands that it's none of these alternatives. "You haven't left my mind since the day I first saw you."

Although Changgu's colorful relationship with love does sometimes leave Yanan doubting his ears, this remark seems impossible to misconstrue. Right now, his heart really is eager for a stronger rush. A stronger flavor. Something that will make his mouth water. Yanan can't pinpoint why it's here, of all times, so present that he abandons safety. He lists it off: tiredness, his pancreas kicking into gear, the fear of being taken away from each other for as much as one second – Yanan counts one, two, before the mouth falls on his jaw again, one and again, another and one more; Changgu's moving blind, pressing his lips along the first bone he finds, backtracking before guiding himself too close or too far, and Yanan allows it, of course.

"You're always doing this", Yanan smiles, a quiet breath escaping him to disappear into the air, and he hears Changgu restrain a soft, amused noise too.

"Tell me to stop."

"Don't." Yanan reaches up and closes his fingers loosely round Changgu's wrist, and holds on to him. "Actually, wait."

Naturally, Changgu sits straighter at the request, eyes flitting minutely over his face with a muted longing. Yanan's heart feels too warm and too heavy in his too-small chest, the weight of Changgu resting upon him, and the heat of the entire day sweetly painting itself upon the lengthening shadows, into the artificial citrus-scented corners of the gym. It's sweeter than a sugar high, faster to kick in than an adrenaline rush, it's something Yanan didn't know he could ever feel tickle his tongue and it's spelled just like love. He wants to beg to let him be selfish, let him stay here with him rather than letting him melt against the pressure. He wants Changgu to forbid him from leaving whatever this is to embark on what could eat him alive the second he sets trembling foot on a ground perplex. He wants Changgu, for always, and it burns beautiful impressions into the surfaces of his brain and heart and the root of his mouth.

"I'll have one."

"Hm?"

"I bite. I'll try to have candy."

"Ah, there's nothing left, sorry. They're deceptively easy to eat." Changgu's eyes dart down, his voice bobbling to the curve of Yanan's consciousness. "I will describe the taste for you, if you'd like, Yanan. I will show you."

Come here. He doesn't explicitly say it and Yanan is acutely aware of the lightness of his tone and the way he adopts it just in case he has to take things back, but it's written all over him, come here. The digital signage content displayed on the TV colors the side of his face one after the other; one second a warm orange cups the curves of his lips, the next a sharp green pierces through his irises, and Yanan can think of more than one song he resembles. He's always been inclined to think of Changgu having served as the muse for several of art's great cherub-obsessives who nevertheless never managed to tip him off to what it was to actually see someone that pretty, wonders how wonderful of a feat he'd achieve in a previous life to deserve Changgu. A single being, unique in the entire universe, a balanced combination of what's most gorgeous and what aches the hardest, leaning towards Yanan and Yanan only with the magnetic pull of a come here. Make a move and come here, come here and do it, dare, come here.

A small smile lingers on Yanan's lips as he watches the thin paper around Changgu's composure unravel.

"Try me."

Changgu opens his mouth to speak, and it occurs to Yanan that he's not obligated to let this moment pass him by just because it's fleeting. "You know what I mean, right?"

The shift in his expression is miniscule, perhaps not perceptible to someone who doesn't know Changgu as well as Yanan does. He looks a bit shy, and it feels different to see him like this, to finally be one step ahead of him. It's not something that usually works for them. They like to be on the same page.

"Yes."

"You're okay with me showing you."

"Yes."

A dam breaks in the back of Yanan's head and he almost chokes around his own breath; his whole chest trembles from the inside, flutters like the wings of a butterfly, and he's sure it shows. He's grown another heart, or two, or three, and the furiously pumping muscle threatens to make him explode.

"I will kiss you now", he says it for reassurance, and if it unsuccessfully grounds Yanan, he's so grateful for the affirmation he could cry.

Confronting his lack of response, Changgu ghosts his fingers over the shell of Yanan's ear, then his mouth, the two only sticker-free surfaces at his eye level right now, soliciting permission.

"Yanan. Can I kiss you now?"

Yanan thinks that two conditionals in the span of an evening is one conditional too many not to close the unbearable chasm in a breath and reaches as far as he can go, as far as his desire will take him, right to the edge of Changgu's lips. Finally, he touches Changgu but not with just his body, finally, he presses his mouth against Changgu's but not in a dreamy thought. It's slow and gentle, and it's so simple, and so soft at first, so tender, that it's really all it takes for Yanan to feel himself fall apart. It isn't obvious to him whether or not Changgu has ever done this before, but every careful, exploratory kiss is bestowed as if his friend is tasting a new delicacy, little sipping kisses that make Yanan's lips tingle and his breathing go short. All that matters is this, that he gets to taste him in chaste kisses, he gets to feel the fall — gravity brings his heart from his throat to his guts and back up against his tongue and it's the only thing he feels, it's the only thing he is: a mouth, a pair of lips finally where they belong, a craving made flesh pushing himself against Changgu's for the scant few seconds stretching out around them like a languid cat. 

It's so much of the same of everything Yanan never knew he could have in his life. It's more, there's so much. There's a wideness trying to burst out of him, surging through every one of his muscles, and his body feels too small for it. He feels too small. Changgu huffs a soft noise and reaches over, grabbing onto the first bit of Yanan he finds and dragging him in impossibly close. He does not push or pull, simply holds on until Yanan breaks the kiss, withdrawing only enough to meet his eyes as he finds his fists have a loose grip on the bottom of Yanan's shirt and they try to breathe in the inches between their faces.

"Good?"

Yanan nods, careful not to bump their chins together, almost laughs at the absurdity. "I like it so much."

It's so quiet, the only things Yanan can hear are the sound of Changgu's inhales and exhales as it mingles with his own and the faint and ceaseless murmur of cars passing beyond the walls, dense and comforting. Changgu guides himself back to Yanan's mouth because of course he does, he's a man who knows his limits and learns them intimately for the very purpose of stretching them as far as possible. It simply is one of these times, and nothing else could feel better, nothing else could compare to Changgu wanting him too. There's a different pinch to it, a squeeze to the heart Yanan hopes he'll get to know better. Changgu is deliberate in his movements, shifting around to loop both arms around Yanan's neck as though he can't believe he has him either, as though he's his one track mind that he plays over and over. All Yanan registers is Changgu's mouth moving against his, perfectly in sync with him, and the anticipation building up over months that he doesn't feel anymore. It's blinding and it's brilliant and it's every question they have never asked and every answer they have never given and every moment of the last past months — years, for Changgu, as he had claimed — that should have been drawn out into this one. There's nothing left to want for he has it all. 

In what feels like another stretched-out lifetime, Changgu breaks the contact, another time. He moves languidly and takes his hands away from Yanan's head, his fingers lingering in his hair for a moment. Yanan's heart threatens to burst as he feels the reluctance in the way he pulls back, his mouth being the part of him that stays the longest. It vanishes too, eventually.

Changgu's blushed from hairline to collarbones, red and warm all over, and despite his slightly disheveled appearance, there's a ferocious clarity in his gaze that makes Yanan's stomach shudder, a haze he can't believe he's responsible for. His friend brushes their noses together in what must be the softest gesture Yanan has ever felt and before he tries to talk, one of the other boy's hands comes back to his hair, slowly pushing his fingers in between the locks, eyes transfixed at the junction. It falls flat and he can't not notice the little scowl gracing Changgu's face at the sight.

"I feel gross," Yanan blurts out, to which Changgu lets out an undignified snort, because it probably isn't the right thing to say after such an intimate exchange, and that's exactly what he tells him. Yanan tries, not very hard, to make a credible show of looking apologetic.

From up close, Changgu's even prettier than he should have the right to be, overpowering in every aspect, and vertigo catches Yanan when he realizes that if he leant forward again, he could catch Changgu's temptingly pink lips. So he does.

There's no way to tell who guides who anymore – they follow each other without asking. Changgu's mouth still tastes like candy, even after Yanan convinces himself that he already swept all the sugar out of it because after all, that's what they're kissing for, melting into it with appreciation. It's undeniably loving, _loving_ — the thought alone makes Yanan blush in the dimness. Changgu's fingers mindlessly play with strands of light hair framing Yanan's face; his thumb brushes his cheek a couple of times, runs over the cheekbone, and Yanan wants to smile against his lips, so he does that too.

If there was a way to carve something solid out of silence, it would rather it be shaped like this. The best kind of silence is warm, and just inches from your face. 

  
  


*

The air is a little cool in the car after Yanan's showered and Changgu drowsily tells him his hair looks just like the moon, and it feels refreshing on his face after being inside for so long. Without other passengers to limit the available space, there is for once an excuse for Changgu to sit as close to Yanan as he did, a real excuse at that — they would usually have sat across from one another, leaving an acceptable distance between them while either of them pretended to read something on their phone or exchanged pleasantries that veiled covert words of affection, but not tonight. Tonight, the rest of the van was peaceful, empty, and devoid of travellers.

It's a curious mixture of cozy and bored, as though some itchy burden for the destination that will come eventually, the grey and dark passing like a bad movie Yanan has seen too many times before. He would usually sit next to the window and doze off against the glass, undisturbed by the road and being rocked from side to side as they travel these familiar roads, brains afforded the more or less short time to daydream or rest. The rest of the boys would usually share earphones to watch an episode of something just funny enough so they giggle at most, the hum of the radio drowning their comments and weak scoffs — the air conditioning whistling slightly with the extreme pressure seems to want to laugh with them. Not tonight, though.

Somewhere in the back, Changgu's head falls down on Yanan's shoulder. 

He had probably only intended to linger there for a moment, but Yanan doesn't open his own eyes to look – he's too sluggish even for that, basking in the euphoric high that comes after exercise. It's only his seat companion's cheek squished against the crook of his neck, this soft hair caressing his jaw and the lack of balance, the car turning down its routine corners and failing to avoid the ditches carved in the blacktop, the tilt that makes Changgu snuggle closer against him in his sleep. His face is quiet in a way that makes Yanan realise how much tension he usually holds in his dream-like hustle, restless underneath the surface, something a little softer underneath all the bravado. Yanan's hand, the one that's not full of candy wrappers enfolds his ankle, stroking his thumb around the jut of the bone there carefully and slowly enough not wake him. He wouldn't dare to deprive him of this short break. The engine sighs, and so does Yanan, his heart clenching beneath his ribs under the weight of the trust Changgu so easily places in him, time after time, moment after moment. 

Yanan's arm is stretched out across the back of his best friend's seat; and when he determines that making out for twenty minutes in the gym is good justification (or at least rationalization) for foregoing proper etiquette at the moment, he lets his head fall down on the top of Changgu's so he can rest against his side too; lets his breathing even and align with the rise of Changgu's shoulders against his own, with the exhales he feels over his neck. Yanan half wishes the other man could see his face right now because then he'd understand for sure, he knows softness and this brand of warmth that comes with the right contact, the right person, the right moment, arms around him like arms around his whole being. Safety. Yanan hasn't found the words yet, but he’s sure Changgu already knows what he always tries to say, to show, to feel a bit more intensely every day.

Yanan has to take a split second to dismiss the possibility that he was already asleep and his subconscious was treating him to a roller coaster. He hovers close to slumber until the van stops, interlocked in this quiet embrace, so through the fog of his mind he is not able to tell if he dreamt the feeling of three words breathed into the side of his neck.

Sleepy eyed and lovesick, he thinks about telling them back to Changgu some time in the fuzzily imagined future, louder, probably, when it’s not a compromise of anyone's resolve anymore. When they have the elusive ‘time to breathe’.


End file.
